advisors

What happened

According to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing dated October 15, 2025, Harbor Capital Advisors reduced its position in F5, Inc. (FFIV -0.88%) by 51,177 shares in Q3 2025. The estimated trade value was $16.02 million in Q3 2025. After the sale, Harbor Capital Advisors reported holding 17,112 shares, valued at $5.53 million as of September 30, 2025.

What else to know

This was a sell; the post-trade stake is 0.43% of Harbor Capital Advisors’ 13F reportable AUM in Q3 2025

Top five holdings after the filing:

IVV: $49,147,000 (3.8% of AUM on September 30, 2025)

EEM: $38,429,000 (3.0% of AUM on September 30, 2025)

EFA: $28.28 million (2.2% of AUM on September 30, 2025)

NVDA: $27,224,000 (2.1% of AUM on September 30, 2025)

GOOGL: $26,539,000 (2.1% of AUM on September 30, 2025)

On October 14, 2025, F5 shares were priced at $343.17, up 56.39% year-over-year on October 14, 2025, outperforming the S&P 500 by 39.89 percentage points over the one-year period ending October 14, 2025.

The fund reported 1,339 total positions and $1.29 billion in U.S. equity AUM in Q3 2025.

Company overview

Company snapshot

Provides multi-cloud application security and delivery products, including BIG-IP appliances, NGINX software, DDoS protection, and fraud prevention solutions.

Generates revenue from sales of software, hardware, and related services.

Serves large enterprises, public sector institutions, governments, and service providers globally through direct sales and channel partners.

F5 is a leading provider of application security and delivery solutions, enabling organizations to secure, optimize, and manage applications across on-premises and cloud environments. The company leverages a diverse portfolio of hardware and software offerings to address complex security and performance requirements for mission-critical applications. With a global customer base and partnerships with major cloud providers, F5 delivers application security and delivery solutions.

Foolish take

Before Harbor Capital Advisors sold most of its F5 stake during the third quarter, it was the firm’s ninth largest holding and worth about 0.8% of the total portfolio. From the end of the second quarter through the end of the third quarter this year, Harbor Capital’s portfolio shrank from $2.4 billion down to $1.3 billion.

Harbor Capital Advisors’ sale of F5 stock in the third quarter seems prescient. Shares of the cybersecurity business that aims to secure every application and its corresponding application programming interface (API) recently tanked.

On Oct. 15, F5, Inc. admitted in an SEC filing that unidentified threat actors broke into its systems and stole some important files. According to the company, the attackers are believed to have been in its network for at least 12 months. The stock is down by about 13% since Oct. 14.

F5 expects to report its fiscal fourth quarter results on Oct. 27, 2025, after the market closes.

Glossary

13F reportable AUM: Assets under management that must be reported quarterly to the SEC by institutional investment managers on Form 13F.
AUM (Assets Under Management): The total market value of investments managed on behalf of clients by a fund or institution.
Post-trade position: The number of shares or value of a holding remaining after a trade has been executed.
Stake: The proportion or amount of ownership an investor or fund holds in a particular company.
Top five holdings: The five largest investments in a fund’s portfolio, ranked by market value.
Outperforming: Achieving a higher return or growth rate compared to a benchmark or index over a specific period.
Channel partners: Third-party companies or organizations that help a business sell its products or services.
Multi-cloud: Using multiple cloud computing services from different providers within a single architecture or organization.
Direct sales: Sales made directly from the company to the customer, without intermediaries.
Mission-critical applications: Software or systems essential to the core function and operation of an organization.
DDoS protection: Security solutions designed to prevent or mitigate distributed denial-of-service attacks that disrupt online services.
TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.

Franklin Street Advisors disclosed an exit from Intuitive Surgical (ISRG -0.92%) in its latest SEC filing for the quarter ended September 30, selling 42,601 shares for an estimated $23.2 million.

What Happened

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission released on Thursday, Franklin Street Advisors sold its entire holding in Intuitive Surgical, divesting 42,601 shares. The estimated value of the transaction, calculated using the average market price during the quarter, was approximately $23.2 million.

What Else to Know

Franklin Street Advisors’ Intuitive Surgical position previously comprised 1.4% of the fund’s 13F assets.

Top holdings after the filing:

• NVDA: $132.2 million (7.6% of AUM)
• MSFT: $115.2 million (6.6% of AUM)
• AAPL: $110.4 million (6.4% of AUM)
• GOOGL: $91.2 million (5.3% of AUM)
• AMZN: $72.5 million (4.2% of AUM)

As of Thursday afternoon, shares of Intuitive Surgical were priced at $443.87, down 9.5% over the past year and underperforming the S&P 500’s 16% gain.

Company Overview

Company Snapshot

• Intuitive Surgical offers the da Vinci Surgical System for minimally invasive surgery and the Ion endoluminal system for diagnostic lung procedures, along with surgical instruments, digital solutions, and support services.
• The company generates revenue primarily through the sale of surgical systems, recurring instrument and accessory sales, and service contracts for its installed base.
• It serves hospitals, surgical centers, and healthcare providers globally, targeting institutions seeking advanced minimally invasive surgical capabilities.

Intuitive Surgical, Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets products that enable physicians and healthcare providers to enhance the quality of, and access to, minimally invasive care in the United States and internationally. Its strategic focus on innovation and expanding procedure adoption underpins its long-term growth trajectory.

Foolish take

Franklin Street Advisors’ $23.2 million sale of its entire Intuitive Surgical position marks a clear step back from the medical robotics firm after a volatile year for the stock. Shares have fallen more than 25% from their all-time high in January, as investors weigh valuation concerns and new tariff-related risks that management warned could trim 2025 margins by about 1 percentage point.

In its second-quarter 2025 earnings, Intuitive posted revenue of $2.4 billion, up 21% year-over-year, with worldwide da Vinci procedure volume climbing 17%. Meanwhile, GAAP net income rose 25% to $658 million ($1.81 per share). Yet even with expanding adoption, tightening gross margins—driven by higher input costs and tariffs on components from Mexico, Germany, and China—tempered enthusiasm.

CEO Dave Rosa said Intuitive remains “committed to advancing care” and expanding access to minimally invasive surgery worldwide. But after a multi-year run-up, Franklin’s decision to take profits may signal growing caution among institutional investors who see near-term headwinds outpacing the company’s impressive long-term growth story.

Glossary

13F reportable assets: Assets that institutional investment managers must disclose quarterly to the SEC, showing their holdings in U.S. publicly traded securities.
Assets under management (AUM): The total market value of investments that a fund or firm manages on behalf of clients.
Full exit: When an investor sells all shares of a particular holding, eliminating exposure to that asset.
Stake: The amount of ownership or investment a fund or individual holds in a company or asset.
Filing: An official document submitted to a regulatory authority, such as the SEC, to disclose financial or operational information.
Divesting: Selling off an asset or investment, often to reduce risk or change portfolio strategy.
Minimally invasive surgery: Surgical procedures performed through small incisions, often using specialized instruments or robotic systems.
Installed base: The total number of a company’s products currently in use by customers.
Service contracts: Agreements for ongoing maintenance, support, or services related to products sold.
Procedure adoption: The rate at which new medical procedures or technologies are implemented by healthcare providers.
TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.

Franklin Street Advisors disclosed in a Thursday regulatory filing that it sold Salesforce shares in an estimated $19.6 million transaction during the third quarter.

What Happened

According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing released Thursday, Franklin Street Advisors sold 77,826 shares of Salesforce (CRM 1.97%) in the third quarter. The estimated transaction value was $19.6 million based on the average share price for the period ended September 30. Following the sale, the fund held 1,924 shares, with a reported value of $455,988 at quarter’s end.

What Else to Know

The sale reduced the Salesforce stake to just 0.03% of Franklin Street Advisors’ 13F reportable assets under management as of September 30.

Top holdings after the filing:

• NVDA: $132.2 million (7.6% of AUM)
• MSFT: $115.2 million (6.6% of AUM)
• AAPL: $110.4 million (6.4% of AUM)
• GOOGL: $91.2 million (5.3% of AUM)
• AMZN: $72.5 million (4.2% of AUM)

As of Thursday afternoon, Salesforce shares were priced at $244.73, down 15% over the past year, far underperforming the S&P 500 by 31 percentage points during the same period.

Company Overview

Company Snapshot

• Salesforce delivers cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, including the Customer 360 platform, Sales, Service, Marketing, Commerce, Tableau analytics, MuleSoft integration, and Slack collaboration tools.
• The company provides enterprise software and related services to organizations worldwide.
• It serves customers in financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, and other industries.

Salesforce, Inc. is a global leader in CRM software, leveraging a comprehensive suite of cloud-based applications to drive digital transformation for its clients. Its scale and broad product portfolio reinforce its position in the enterprise software market. The company’s strategy centers on deepening customer engagement and expanding its platform ecosystem to maintain market leadership and sustain long-term growth.

Foolish Take

Franklin Street Advisors’ decision to nearly liquidate its Salesforce position—with a $19.6 million sale reducing holdings to just 0.03% of assets—reflects a sharp pivot away from one of tech’s weaker performers this year. Salesforce shares are down 15% over the past 12 months, while the fund’s top holdings—NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon—have each notched double-digit gains, underscoring the widening divide between AI winners and software incumbents still proving their growth story.

In its latest quarterly earnings release, Salesforce reported revenue of $10.2 billion, up 10% year-over-year, and a GAAP operating margin of 22.8%, its 10th straight quarter of margin expansion. Net income climbed to $1.9 billion, or $1.96 per share, as strong demand for Data Cloud and AI offerings lifted recurring revenue. However, investors have grown cautious amid slowing overall growth and mounting competition in enterprise AI integration.

CEO Marc Benioff called the quarter “outstanding,” highlighting the company’s vision for “agentic enterprises” blending human and AI workflows. Yet with steep competition, Salesforce may need to show faster innovation—and reignite investor enthusiasm—to reclaim its former momentum.

Glossary

13F reportable assets: Assets that institutional investment managers must report quarterly to the SEC, showing their holdings.
Assets under management (AUM): The total market value of investments managed on behalf of clients by a fund or firm.
Transaction value: The total dollar amount received or paid in a specific buy or sell of securities.
Stake: The portion or percentage of ownership an investor or fund holds in a company.
Top holdings: The largest investments in a fund’s portfolio, typically ranked by market value.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Software and strategies used by companies to manage interactions with customers and prospects.
Platform ecosystem: The network of products, services, and partners built around a company’s core software platform.
Dividend yield: The annual dividend payment divided by the stock’s current price, expressed as a percentage.
TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.

Sage Capital Advisors, LLC reduced its position in Costco Wholesale Corporation(COST -0.00%), selling 3,424 shares in Q3 2025. The estimated trade value was $3.28 million, based on quarterly average pricing for the period ended September 30, 2025, according to an SEC filing dated October 7, 2025.

What happened

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission dated October 07, 2025, Sage Capital Advisors, LLC sold 3,424 shares of Costco in Q3 2025. The transaction was valued at an estimated $3.28 million. Following the trade, the fund held 6,371 shares valued at $5.90 million as of September 30, 2025.

What else to know

The fund’s position in Costco decreased from 2.3937% to 1.4023% of reportable AUM as of 2025-09-30 following the sale.

Top holdings after the filing:

• NASDAQ:AAPL: $37.26 million (8.9% of AUM) as of September 30, 2025
• NASDAQ:MSFT: $21.92 million (5.2% of AUM) as of 2025-09-30
• NASDAQ:NVDA: $19.31 million (4.6% of AUM) as of 2025-09-30
• NASDAQ:GOOGL: $18.69 million (4.4% of AUM) as of 2025-09-30
• NASDAQ:AMZN: $16.32 million (3.9% of AUM) as of 2025-09-30

As of October 6, 2025, shares of Costco were priced at $910.94, up 4.3% over the past year, underperforming the S&P 500 by 13.7 percentage points

Company Overview

Company Snapshot

Offers a broad assortment of branded and private-label merchandise, including groceries, appliances, electronics, apparel, and specialty services such as pharmacies, optical centers, and fuel stations.

Operates a membership-based warehouse model

Operates in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia

As of September 2025, the company operated 914 membership warehouses worldwide

Foolish take

Sage Capital Advisors sold off about 34% of its Costco holdings during Q3 2025, totaling about $3.28 million, dropping Costco from about 2.4% of its AUM to about 1.4%. This wasn’t a significant drop in its overall portfolio composition, even if it did represent a pretty significant sell-off of its Costco stock holdings.

Although Costco remains a strong retail company, investors have long worried it has been getting overvalued and has less room to grow in valuation in the near-term. For example, over the last year, Costco share values only increased by 4.3%, significantly underperforming the market. The company also had a very strong Q3, despite a resulting drop in its stock price.

Costco remains a desirable company for many investors, even if institutional investors like Sage Capital Advisors are selling significant shares. This may be a regular part of its portfolio management, and nothing to worry about, or it may have been taking gains at one of the near-$1000 peaks that occurred during the quarter. 

Either way, this looks more like a rebalancing move and less like a statement about Costco.

Glossary

AUM: Assets Under Management – The total market value of investments managed by a fund or firm.
Reportable AUM: The portion of a fund’s assets required to be disclosed in regulatory filings, often U.S. equities.
Top holdings: The largest individual investments in a fund, typically ranked by market value or portfolio percentage.
Membership-based warehouse model: A retail structure where customers pay annual fees to access bulk goods at discounted prices.
Dividend Yield: Annual dividends per share divided by share price, shown as a percentage.
TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.

WASHINGTON — President Trump rocked American politics at the outset of his first campaign when he first labeled his rivals as enemies of the American people. But the rhetoric of his top confidantes has grown more extreme in recent days.

Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff, declared over the weekend that “a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country” is fueling a historic national schism, “shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general.”

“The only remedy,” Miller said, “is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.”

It was a maxim from an unelected presidential advisor who is already unleashing the federal government in unprecedented ways, overseeing the federalization of police forces and a sweeping deportation campaign challenging basic tenets of civil liberty.

Miller’s rhetoric comes amid a federal crackdown on Portland, Ore., where he says the president has unchecked authority to protect federal lives and property — and as another controversial Trump advisor harnesses an ongoing government shutdown as pretext for the mass firing of federal workers.

Russ Vought, the president’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, plays the grim reaper in an AI video shared by the president, featuring him roving Washington for bureaucrats to cut from the deep state during the shutdown.

His goal, Trump has said, is to specifically target Democrats.

As of Monday afternoon, it was unclear exactly how many federal workers or what federal agencies would be targeted.

“We don’t want to see people laid off, but unfortunately, if this shutdown continues layoffs are going to be an unfortunate consequence of that,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Levitt said during a news briefing.

‘A nation of Constitutional law’

Karin Immergut, a federal judge appointed by Trump, said this weekend that the administration’s justification for deploying California National Guard troops in Portland was “simply untethered to the facts.”

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote, chiding the Trump administration for attempting to circumvent a prior order from her against a federal deployment to the city.

“This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition,” she added: “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”

The administration is expected to appeal the judge’s decision, Leavitt said, while calling the judge’s ruling “untethered in reality and in the law.”

“We’re very confident in the president’s legal authority to do this, and we are very confident we will win on the merits of the law,” Leavitt said.

If the courts were to side with the administration, Leavitt said local leaders — most of whom are Democrats — should not be concerned about the possibility of long-term plans to have their cities occupied by the military.

“Why should they be concerned about the federal government offering help to make their cities a safer place?” Leavitt said. “They should be concerned about the fact that people in their cities right now are being gunned down every single night and the president, all he is trying to do, is fix it.”

Moments later, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that though he does not believe it is necessary yet, he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act “if courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up.”

“Sure, I’d do that,” Trump said. “We have to make sure that our cities are safe.”

The Insurrection Act gives the president sweeping emergency power to deploy military forces within the United States if the president deems it is needed to quell civil unrest. The last time this occurred was in 1992, when California Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush to send federal troops to help stop the Los Angeles riots that occurred after police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King.

Subsequent posts from Miller on social media over the weekend escalated the stakes to existential heights, accusing Democrats of allying themselves with “domestic terrorists” seeking to overturn the will of the people reflected in Trump’s election win last year.

On Monday, in an interview with CNN, Miller suggested that the administration would continue working to sidestep Immergut’s orders.

“The administration will abide by the ruling insofar as it affects the covered parties,” he said, “but there are also many options the president has to deploy federal resources under the U.S. military to Portland.”

Other Republicans have used similar rhetoric since the slaying of Charlie Kirk, a conservative youth activist, in Utah last month.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) wrote that posts from California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office have reached “the threshold of domestic terrorism,” after the Democratic governor referred to Miller on social media as a fascist. And Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) said Monday that Democrats demanding an extension of healthcare benefits as a condition for reopening the government were equivalent to terrorists.

“I don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Fine told Newsmax, “and what we’ve learned in whether it’s dealing with Muslim terrorists or Democrats, you’ve gotta stand and you’ve gotta do the right thing.”

Investigating donor networks

Republicans’ keenness to label Democrats as terrorists comes two weeks after Trump signed an executive order declaring a left-wing antifascist movement, known as antifa, as a “domestic terrorist organization” — a designation that does not exist under U.S. law.

The order, which opened a new front in Trump’s battle against his political foes, also threatened to investigate and prosecute individuals who funded “any and all illegal operations — especially those involving terrorist actions — conducted by antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of antifa.”

Leavitt told reporters Monday that the administration is “aggressively” looking into who is financially backing these operations.

Trump has floated the possibility of going after people such as George Soros, a billionaire who has supported many left-leaning causes around the world.

“If you look at Soros, he is at the top of everything,” Trump said during an Oval Office appearance last month.

The White House has not yet made public any details about a formal investigation into donors, but Leavitt said the administration’s efforts are underway.

“We will continue to get to the bottom of who is funding these organizations and this organized anarchy against our country and our government,” Leavitt said. “We are committed to uncovering it.”